In 2025, Tim Davie, the BBC director-general, announced plans to expand local democracy reporting, allowing it to go beyond its focus on local authorities to cover a range of other areas.
What will be covered?
Other areas that the BBC wants to cover include police and crime commissioners, health authorities, and in-depth analysis of regional mayors and their work, aiming to continue to share the coverage with partner publishers.
Davie stated that he hoped to be more radical in supporting others, suggesting that the BBC could ‘open source’ local news, audio, and video content, although he emphasised that consultation with those local partners, including Reach, Newsquest, and National World, would be needed.
Strengthen journalism
The director-general also stated the BBC’s ambitions include strengthening local journalism. For many journalists, local journalism is where they started their careers, and it continues to provide opportunities for those starting out in their careers, as well as for further development. If journalism is a career that interests you, a good place to boost your chances of hire is with an NCTJ diploma. You can find out more about these from a course provider such as newsassociates.co.uk/what-is-the-nctj/.
Controversy
Not everyone is happy with the BBC’s expansion. Rival commercial publishers have said that it is crushing competition, as they find it difficult to compete when the same stories appear on the BBC’s ad-free platform. However, although Ofcom acknowledged that there may be some areas where the BBC is displacing commercial viewing, they had not seen evidence that this was affecting commercial publisher page views.
